Unless you have skin in the game your estimate for the work can't be credible. Let's look at the potential for such an approach in light of the credibility of an estimate. No one getting paid to estimate likes to present bad news. NoEstimates EstimatingMORE

Let's look at what estimates are needed to answer each of the Five questions: Principle. Estimate Needed To Answer The Question. Each requires us to make an estimate of the confidence in the elements of the Plan. You can't apply risk management without estimating. MORE

Tools and resources for cost and schedule estimating, when you here estimates are hard, we're bad at estimating, estimates are a waste, estimates are misused All those statements are fallacies. iceaaonline.com International Cost Estimating and Analysis Association. MORE

I work in a domain where estimates are made every single week. Estimate to Complete (ETC), Estimate at Completion (EAC), Estimated Completion Date (ECD) are the life blood of our software intensive system of systems programs. But Estimating is NOT Guessing. MORE

The software comes with templates so you don’t have to create from scratch unless you want to. I tried the software on my iPad and frankly it wasn’t that easy to create a nice looking roadmap using my fingers as input devices. Software review: Viewpath Express Viewpath 2.0 MORE

Paul Boos has a post about estimating and makes a case for the Principles of when NOT to estimate. This struck a cord around a bigger topic - the inversion of estimating. When should we NOT estimate? What business decision making conditions could be in place where we don't have to estimate the outcomes of our decision in the presence of uncertainty? Then on to the original conjecture for No Estimates from Paul's post. Not principles for NOT estimating. MORE

ways to make decisions with No Estimates. Uncertainty of course is present in all software development work both reducible and irreducible uncertainty. can we make a decision in the presence of Uncertainty without making an estimate of the impact or outcome of that decision? What would be the evidence that we could make decisions in the presence of uncertanty without estimating the impacts and outcomes of those decisions? . An estimate is. MORE

What is an estimate? An estimate as a noun is an approximate calculation or judgment of the value, number, quantity, or extent of something. An estimate as a verb is to roughly calculate or judge the value, number, quantity, or extent of. Estimates. MORE

Estimating is part of all decision making in the presence of uncertainty. Accuracy and precision are two primary attributes of all estimates. We all know estimates are hard. But there are lots of hard things in the development of enterprise software. MORE

Microeconomics is applicable to the development is software systems. If we look at the discipline of software engineering, we see that the microeconomics branch of economics deals more with the types of decisions we need to make as software engineers or managers. MORE

Project managers need to be comfortable with different estimation techniques. Foundational project management courses will teach you about analogous, bottom-up, parametric and three-point estimating. Estimate the size or effort of that story or work package. MORE

He doesn't know how - He doesn't understand how estimates fit into the process of business and managerial finance of product or service development. He doesn't understand why estimates are needed - He doesn't understand the impact on the business for not knowing how long, how much, and what will be produced for the time and money. Coding work is much more fun than making estimates, documenting the requirements, writing tests. Herding Cats: Decisions Without Estimates? MORE

In the estimating business, like many things in project management, there is confusion about principles, practices, and processes. A good estimation approach should provide estimates that are within 25% of the actual results, 75% of the time. Want To Learn How To Estimate? MORE

I'm working an Implementation Review (IR) of a major space flight vehilce, that includes Software Intensive System of Systems. . Here are the guidelines for a credible cost estimate (GAO-16-620). Details calculations performed and estimating methodology used. Estimate should lack bias; be neither overly conservative nor optimist. Regular updates cost estimate to reflect significant changes. Estimate based on historical record of comparable p[rograms. MORE

There's a blog post from a few years back that has resurfaced The 5 Laws of SoftwareEstimates. Law of SoftwareEstimating. Fact of SoftwareEstimating. Estimates are waste. To those paying the developers, estimates provide actionable information needed to make decisions: Can we afford to develop this feature? Estimates are non-transferrable . Its claimed Softwareestimates are not fungible. Estimates are Wrong. MORE

This article, AlchemyWorks: Software Review [2018] , first appeared on Girl's Guide to Project Management. The Events tab lets users add activity that they have worked on, which feeds into time used, automatically takes time off existing estimates to reduce them and accumulates financial information for the project. SoftwareGeneral information. Name: AlchemyWorks. Vendor: AlchemyWorks Ltd. Hosting options: Web only. There’s also an android app available. MORE

When you replace fixed-date deterministic scheduling with probabilistic estimations, you’ve got a whole new ball game. Probabilistic estimation is one of the reasons LiquidPlanner is the most realistic project management tool in the world. MORE

A nice conversation on twitter about estimates on software brought up the topic of estimates as commitments. The #NoEstimates advocates see estimates as making commitments. Yes, commitments are made when we estimate. I have an 80% confidence (an estimate) I can deliver what you need on or before September 15 (an estimate), at or below $15,000.oo (an estimate) with a 15% error band (an estimate). . Estimates are not needed. MORE

Estimating is a learned skill, used for any purpose from every-day life to management of projects. When I left for the airport this morning to catch my flight to a customer site I estimated, given the conditions, how much time I need to get to my favorite parking spot at DIA. The same process for estimating is applied to multi-billion dollar projects we work. Here's some materials that provide the tools and processes needed to learn how to estimate. MORE

There's a never-ending opportunity to learn how to estimate in the presence of uncertainty. When you hear that estimates are a waste (we'd rather be coding), estimates are fiction, we're bad at estimating, and the plethora of other excuses for not learning how to estimate, ask if that person has done the minimal homework to learn how to estimate needed to make decisions in the presence of uncertainty found on all software development projects. . MORE

We can't estimate things we've never done before - this is simply not true. If you truley haven't done the work before, you're probabiliy not the right person to be estimating for those wanting to pay you. . Estimates are guesses, because we don't know that the future is - this is a fundamental misunderstanding (either with intent or omission) on how estimates are made. We've never done this before, so how can we possibly estimate how long it will take? MORE

The idea of risk and its management and handling is a critical success factor for all software development. Peter Drucker (1975) Management (From The Principles of Software Engineering , Chapter 6, Tom Glib, 1988). In order to make risk-informed decisions, we must estimate the outcomes and the impacts of those outcomes on future activities (cost, schedule, and technical performance of products and services). Without these estimates, there is no risk management. MORE

I work in a domain where engineered systems are developed for complex software-intensive system of systems. Since all risk comes from uncertainty - reducible (Epistemic) and irreducible (Aleatory), estimating is a foundation of all we do. There is no discussion of the conjecture that estimates are a waste, estimates can't be done, estimates are evil, estimates must be stopped immediately. Generating accurate and precise estimates is straightforward. MORE

There's a recent post titled Four Fallacious Reasons to Estimate. It lists the usual suspects for why those spending the money think they don't have to estimate how much they plan to spend when they'll be done producing the value they've been assigned to produce for that expenditure. MORE

The estimating of software development is both straightforward and complex. When it is suggested that estimating is hard, of no value, and unnecessary, always ask what principle is used to support that claim? Here are some resources that will provide guidance to produce credible software development estimates, in both traditional and agile domains. Software Sizing and Estimating: Mk II FPA , Charles Symons, John Wiley & Sons, 1991. MORE

For example, about which software to buy, which Features in the development backlog should be implemented next, what prices to charge for products and services. Software development is an exercise in microeconomics, since it deals with limited resources - time, cost, and what value is produced in exchange for the time and money. This is the foundation for estimates. Estimates with accuracy and precision values needed to make credible decisions. No Estimates? MORE

The software comes with templates so you don’t have to create from scratch unless you want to. I tried the software on my iPad and frankly it wasn’t that easy to create a nice looking roadmap using my fingers as input devices. Software review: Viewpath Express Viewpath 2.0 MORE

One of the 4 summary root causes of project performance failures is Unrealistic Cost and Schedule Estimates based on inadequate risk-adjusted growth models. If you have no uncertainty, then estimates provide no value. Herding Cats: Basis of EstimatingSoftware Development. MORE

Yes, R and its ARIMA function says FORECAST, and yes a FORECAST is an ESTIMATE of the possible range of values in the future using data from the past. Why Guessing is not Estimating and Estimating is not Guessing. MORE

Time to revisit the software and see what has changed. The company have also made huge improvements with software integration and as well as being compatible with the Microsoft suite and Google Apps they have also introduced integrations via Zapier. Better Collaboration SoftwareMORE

Can you make a decision without an estimate? There are NO means of making a credible decision in the presence of uncertainty without estimating the outcome of that decision. Don't assume, Estimate. Be an Adult, estimate the impact of the risk on the probability of success. MORE

Here's some thoughts on the economics of software development using other people's money, after 3 weeks of working a proposal for a major software intensive system of systems using Agile. To make those economic decisions, we need to estimate both business value and development cost. Why Do We Need Estimates? It's not the developers that need the estimates - they take the money and turn that money into value. Estimates are primarily used to support decisions. MORE

You'll also like: Software Review: Project Viewer for Primavera [2016] This article was updated with minor amends on 27 March 2016. Software review: Simplestimate [2016] Find out more about how to make estimating simple with this software review of Simplestimate. MORE

How Software Reviews Happen. This is how the software review process normally goes for me. Software company: We’ve got a really cool product we’d like you to review. Software company: So will you review it? Software Review: iMindQ 4.1 SoftwareMORE

A statistical model for estimating isn’t normally something I’d put in the ‘make my job easy’ box, but I might just have found one that works. What if you want an estimate that is, say, 75% reliable? PERT can’t give you those kinds of estimates. How reliable is this estimate?”. MORE

The presentation " Quantifying the Impact of Agile Practices ," Larry MacCherone at the RallyOn 2013 Conference, presents some results on estimating impacts. The Software Development Performance Index (SDPI) scale on the left ranges - by eyeball measurement - from 46 to 55. Estimatin MORE

Good task management software is a great tool to plan a project from the high-level concept ideas to the small tasks needed to complete the project. In fact, the most basic and yet the most important element of a project management software is its task management features. MORE

If you’re here, it means that you’re looking for time tracking software that you will use yourself or with your team. Improve time estimates: You can use p reviously tracked time entries as the main indicator for your future projects. Published: February 2018. MORE

Estimates. An Estimate is a value inferred for a population of values based on data collected from a sample of data from that population. The estimate can also be produced parametrically or through a simulation (Monte Carlo is common, but Method of Moments is another we use). . Estimates can be about the past, present, or future. We can estimate the number of clams in the Pleistocene era that are in the shale formations near our house. Estimate to Complete. MORE

The estimating of software development is both straightforward and complex. When it is suggested that estimating is hard, of no value, and unnecessary, always ask what principle is used to support that claim? Here are some resources that will provide guidance to produce credible software development estimates, in both traditional and agile domains. Software Sizing and Estimating: Mk II FPA , Charles Symons, John Wiley & Sons, 1991.

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A statistical model for estimating isn’t normally something I’d put in the ‘make my job easy’ box, but I might just have found one that works. What if you want an estimate that is, say, 75% reliable? PERT can’t give you those kinds of estimates. How reliable is this estimate?”.

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There's a never-ending opportunity to learn how to estimate in the presence of uncertainty. When you hear that estimates are a waste (we'd rather be coding), estimates are fiction, we're bad at estimating, and the plethora of other excuses for not learning how to estimate, ask if that person has done the minimal homework to learn how to estimate needed to make decisions in the presence of uncertainty found on all software development projects. .

Unless you have skin in the game your estimate for the work can't be credible. Let's look at the potential for such an approach in light of the credibility of an estimate. No one getting paid to estimate likes to present bad news. NoEstimates Estimating

Estimates. An Estimate is a value inferred for a population of values based on data collected from a sample of data from that population. The estimate can also be produced parametrically or through a simulation (Monte Carlo is common, but Method of Moments is another we use). . Estimates can be about the past, present, or future. We can estimate the number of clams in the Pleistocene era that are in the shale formations near our house. Estimate to Complete.

Tools and resources for cost and schedule estimating, when you here estimates are hard, we're bad at estimating, estimates are a waste, estimates are misused All those statements are fallacies. iceaaonline.com International Cost Estimating and Analysis Association.

Project managers need to be comfortable with different estimation techniques. Foundational project management courses will teach you about analogous, bottom-up, parametric and three-point estimating. Estimate the size or effort of that story or work package.

I work in a domain where estimates are made every single week. Estimate to Complete (ETC), Estimate at Completion (EAC), Estimated Completion Date (ECD) are the life blood of our software intensive system of systems programs. But Estimating is NOT Guessing.

What is an estimate? An estimate as a noun is an approximate calculation or judgment of the value, number, quantity, or extent of something. An estimate as a verb is to roughly calculate or judge the value, number, quantity, or extent of. Estimates.

ways to make decisions with No Estimates. Uncertainty of course is present in all software development work both reducible and irreducible uncertainty. can we make a decision in the presence of Uncertainty without making an estimate of the impact or outcome of that decision? What would be the evidence that we could make decisions in the presence of uncertanty without estimating the impacts and outcomes of those decisions? . An estimate is.

How Software Reviews Happen. This is how the software review process normally goes for me. Software company: We’ve got a really cool product we’d like you to review. Software company: So will you review it? Software Review: iMindQ 4.1 Software

One of the 4 summary root causes of project performance failures is Unrealistic Cost and Schedule Estimates based on inadequate risk-adjusted growth models. If you have no uncertainty, then estimates provide no value. Herding Cats: Basis of EstimatingSoftware Development.

Can you make a decision without an estimate? There are NO means of making a credible decision in the presence of uncertainty without estimating the outcome of that decision. Don't assume, Estimate. Be an Adult, estimate the impact of the risk on the probability of success.

Estimates. An Estimate is a value inferred for a population of values based on data collected from a sample of data from that population. The estimate can also be produced parametrically or through a simulation (Monte Carlo is common, but Method of Moments is another we use). . Estimates can be about the past, present, or future. We can estimate the number of clams in the Pleistocene era that are in the shale formations near our house. Estimate to Complete.

Tools and resources for cost and schedule estimating, when you here estimates are hard, we're bad at estimating, estimates are a waste, estimates are misused All those statements are fallacies. iceaaonline.com International Cost Estimating and Analysis Association.

Project managers need to be comfortable with different estimation techniques. Foundational project management courses will teach you about analogous, bottom-up, parametric and three-point estimating. Estimate the size or effort of that story or work package.

I work in a domain where engineered systems are developed for complex software-intensive system of systems. Since all risk comes from uncertainty - reducible (Epistemic) and irreducible (Aleatory), estimating is a foundation of all we do. There is no discussion of the conjecture that estimates are a waste, estimates can't be done, estimates are evil, estimates must be stopped immediately. Generating accurate and precise estimates is straightforward.

A nice conversation on twitter about estimates on software brought up the topic of estimates as commitments. The #NoEstimates advocates see estimates as making commitments. Yes, commitments are made when we estimate. I have an 80% confidence (an estimate) I can deliver what you need on or before September 15 (an estimate), at or below $15,000.oo (an estimate) with a 15% error band (an estimate). . Estimates are not needed.

There's a blog post from a few years back that has resurfaced The 5 Laws of SoftwareEstimates. Law of SoftwareEstimating. Fact of SoftwareEstimating. Estimates are waste. To those paying the developers, estimates provide actionable information needed to make decisions: Can we afford to develop this feature? Estimates are non-transferrable . Its claimed Softwareestimates are not fungible. Estimates are Wrong.

I'm working an Implementation Review (IR) of a major space flight vehilce, that includes Software Intensive System of Systems. . Here are the guidelines for a credible cost estimate (GAO-16-620). Details calculations performed and estimating methodology used. Estimate should lack bias; be neither overly conservative nor optimist. Regular updates cost estimate to reflect significant changes. Estimate based on historical record of comparable p[rograms.

Estimating is a learned skill, used for any purpose from every-day life to management of projects. When I left for the airport this morning to catch my flight to a customer site I estimated, given the conditions, how much time I need to get to my favorite parking spot at DIA. The same process for estimating is applied to multi-billion dollar projects we work. Here's some materials that provide the tools and processes needed to learn how to estimate.

The software comes with templates so you don’t have to create from scratch unless you want to. I tried the software on my iPad and frankly it wasn’t that easy to create a nice looking roadmap using my fingers as input devices. Software review: Viewpath Express Viewpath 2.0

The software comes with templates so you don’t have to create from scratch unless you want to. I tried the software on my iPad and frankly it wasn’t that easy to create a nice looking roadmap using my fingers as input devices. Software review: Viewpath Express Viewpath 2.0

Paul Boos has a post about estimating and makes a case for the Principles of when NOT to estimate. This struck a cord around a bigger topic - the inversion of estimating. When should we NOT estimate? What business decision making conditions could be in place where we don't have to estimate the outcomes of our decision in the presence of uncertainty? Then on to the original conjecture for No Estimates from Paul's post. Not principles for NOT estimating.

He doesn't know how - He doesn't understand how estimates fit into the process of business and managerial finance of product or service development. He doesn't understand why estimates are needed - He doesn't understand the impact on the business for not knowing how long, how much, and what will be produced for the time and money. Coding work is much more fun than making estimates, documenting the requirements, writing tests. Herding Cats: Decisions Without Estimates?

There's a recent post titled Four Fallacious Reasons to Estimate. It lists the usual suspects for why those spending the money think they don't have to estimate how much they plan to spend when they'll be done producing the value they've been assigned to produce for that expenditure.

In the estimating business, like many things in project management, there is confusion about principles, practices, and processes. A good estimation approach should provide estimates that are within 25% of the actual results, 75% of the time. Want To Learn How To Estimate?

The presentation " Quantifying the Impact of Agile Practices ," Larry MacCherone at the RallyOn 2013 Conference, presents some results on estimating impacts. The Software Development Performance Index (SDPI) scale on the left ranges - by eyeball measurement - from 46 to 55. Estimatin

Time to revisit the software and see what has changed. The company have also made huge improvements with software integration and as well as being compatible with the Microsoft suite and Google Apps they have also introduced integrations via Zapier. Better Collaboration Software

We can't estimate things we've never done before - this is simply not true. If you truley haven't done the work before, you're probabiliy not the right person to be estimating for those wanting to pay you. . Estimates are guesses, because we don't know that the future is - this is a fundamental misunderstanding (either with intent or omission) on how estimates are made. We've never done this before, so how can we possibly estimate how long it will take?

Yes, R and its ARIMA function says FORECAST, and yes a FORECAST is an ESTIMATE of the possible range of values in the future using data from the past. Why Guessing is not Estimating and Estimating is not Guessing.

Here's some thoughts on the economics of software development using other people's money, after 3 weeks of working a proposal for a major software intensive system of systems using Agile. To make those economic decisions, we need to estimate both business value and development cost. Why Do We Need Estimates? It's not the developers that need the estimates - they take the money and turn that money into value. Estimates are primarily used to support decisions.

The idea of risk and its management and handling is a critical success factor for all software development. Peter Drucker (1975) Management (From The Principles of Software Engineering , Chapter 6, Tom Glib, 1988). In order to make risk-informed decisions, we must estimate the outcomes and the impacts of those outcomes on future activities (cost, schedule, and technical performance of products and services). Without these estimates, there is no risk management.

Estimating is part of all decision making in the presence of uncertainty. Accuracy and precision are two primary attributes of all estimates. We all know estimates are hard. But there are lots of hard things in the development of enterprise software.

Microeconomics is applicable to the development is software systems. If we look at the discipline of software engineering, we see that the microeconomics branch of economics deals more with the types of decisions we need to make as software engineers or managers.

Let's look at what estimates are needed to answer each of the Five questions: Principle. Estimate Needed To Answer The Question. Each requires us to make an estimate of the confidence in the elements of the Plan. You can't apply risk management without estimating.

This article, AlchemyWorks: Software Review [2018] , first appeared on Girl's Guide to Project Management. The Events tab lets users add activity that they have worked on, which feeds into time used, automatically takes time off existing estimates to reduce them and accumulates financial information for the project. SoftwareGeneral information. Name: AlchemyWorks. Vendor: AlchemyWorks Ltd. Hosting options: Web only. There’s also an android app available.

Good task management software is a great tool to plan a project from the high-level concept ideas to the small tasks needed to complete the project. In fact, the most basic and yet the most important element of a project management software is its task management features.

For example, about which software to buy, which Features in the development backlog should be implemented next, what prices to charge for products and services. Software development is an exercise in microeconomics, since it deals with limited resources - time, cost, and what value is produced in exchange for the time and money. This is the foundation for estimates. Estimates with accuracy and precision values needed to make credible decisions. No Estimates?

When you replace fixed-date deterministic scheduling with probabilistic estimations, you’ve got a whole new ball game. Probabilistic estimation is one of the reasons LiquidPlanner is the most realistic project management tool in the world.

You'll also like: Software Review: Project Viewer for Primavera [2016] This article was updated with minor amends on 27 March 2016. Software review: Simplestimate [2016] Find out more about how to make estimating simple with this software review of Simplestimate.

If you’re here, it means that you’re looking for time tracking software that you will use yourself or with your team. Improve time estimates: You can use p reviously tracked time entries as the main indicator for your future projects. Published: February 2018.